The Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt back in the 1920’s, but they remained a small, ineffective group until they gained a powerful new mentor—Adolph Hitler. Under his guidance, the Muslim Brotherhood launched the original global jihad against the Jewish people. Matthias Kuntzel said, “The significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik Party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas.”

Though the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for the death of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and viewed with suspicion by his successor Hosni Mubarak, their violently anti-Semitic views remain widespread in popular media and culture. The phony book that lays out a supposed plot by Jews to take over the world, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, remains a best-seller in Egypt today.

Today, history is repeating itself in Egypt. Following the First World War, Egypt passed a secular constitution that guaranteed rights for everyone. Christians and Jews were protected and respected, and had freedom to fully participate in every part of life. Yet over time, that freedom and tolerance were replaced with a radical Islamic view that demanded all submit to Muslim doctrine.

Millions took to the streets in Egypt recently to demand freedom. Yet once again, we see the process of that freedom being stolen away to be replaced with an Islamist government that will carry out the hatred of the Jewish people that has long festered in the Arab world. Though Egypt and Israel have officially been at peace for more than thirty years, a vast majority of the people are bitterly opposed to peace with Israel. It is telling that the most famous Palestinian terrorist in history, Yasser Arafat, was born in Cairo. Events in the Middle East are making the threats to Israel more deadly than ever.